Giants Could Hold Competition For Backup Catcher Role

When the Giants signed Tom Murphy to a two-year, $8.25MM deal last offseason, the contract came with the clear expectation that he would serve as the backup to young defensive star Patrick Bailey over the next two seasons. Murphy’s veteran experience and power bat would surely pair nicely with Bailey’s youth and glove-first skill set. Unfortunately for Murphy and San Francisco, he ended up spending most of the first year of his deal on the injured list nursing a sprained left knee. Meanwhile, the Giants needed six different catchers to get through the season, including two – Curt Casali and Andrew Knapp – who weren’t in the organization as of Opening Day. With the 2025 campaign fast approaching, Murphy is another year older and another year removed from his last healthy season. So, it stands to reason that the Giants would at least consider all their options before giving him the backup job once again.  Indeed, according to Andrew Baggarly and Grant Brisbee of The Athletic, you can expect the team to hold “an open competition” for their second-string catcher job this spring. 

Murphy played just 13 games in 2024, going 4-for-34 with one double, one home run, and four walks. When he landed on the IL in early May, Giants manager Bob Melvin told reporters (including Baggarly) that he would need approximately four to six weeks to recover. Yet, weeks turned into months and Murphy still could not squat behind the plate without pain. Eventually, a second MRI scan after the All-Star break showed that his sprained ligament had not healed at all (per Evan Webeck of the Bay Area News Group). A PRP injection seemed to help the healing process, but by that point, Murphy’s 2024 season was lost. On the bright side, he told Webeck in September that he hoped to be back at full strength by spring training, and there’s no reason to believe that timeline has changed.

It’s easy to see what the Giants liked about Murphy when they signed him. At his best (and his healthiest), he is a legitimate power threat, especially against left-handed pitching. He hit well when he was on the field in 2022 and ’23, batting .292 with nine home runs in 61 games. Particularly impressive were his .879 OPS and 148 wRC+ in 201 trips to the plate; no catcher (min. 200 PA) had a higher OPS or wRC+ in that span. Murphy also showed off his unusual power for a catcher in 2019 with the Mariners, a year in which he hit 18 home runs and put up a 126 wRC+ in 281 PA.

Of course, 201 PA and 281 PA are both small sample sizes, and small sample sizes have been a problem for Murphy throughout his career. He has never played more than 97 games or taken more than 325 PA in a season. As he enters his age-34 campaign, he has only crossed the 200 PA threshold in a season twice, the 100 PA threshold three times, and the 50 PA threshold four times. He has spent at least six weeks on the IL in four of the past five years. And of all the injuries he has suffered, his knee sprain last season might be the most troubling yet. Knee injuries are always worrisome for catchers, and the fact that he took so long to recover is another cause for concern. Even in a best-case scenario where Bailey stays healthy throughout this coming season and takes on as much of the catching duties as he possibly can, the Giants will still need 400 or so innings from their backup. Murphy has only caught 400 innings in a season twice, and it’s more than fair to wonder if he can handle that kind of workload in 2025.

With all that said, it works in Murphy’s favor that the Giants don’t necessarily have a better option. In January, Brisbee laid out a few of Murphy’s potential competitors, including Sam Huff, Max Stassi, and Logan Porter. Huff, who is already on the 40-man roster, was once a relatively well-regarded prospect in the Rangers organization. However, the 27-year-old has never been able to establish himself at the big league level, and he’s coming off a poor offensive season at Triple-A. Stassi, meanwhile, has plenty of MLB experience, but he hasn’t played in the majors since 2022 and has not been a productive major league since 2021. He’s the same age as Murphy and comes with even more question marks. Finally, Porter has some offensive upside, but there’s a reason he’s 29 years old and only has 11 big league games under his belt. Unlike Murphy, Huff, or Stassi, Porter has minor league options, which makes him a potential candidate to shuttle back and forth between the majors and minors as needed in a third-string catcher role.

If the Giants are willing to look outside the organization, they could make this competition a little more interesting by signing another veteran catcher like James McCann, Luke Maile, or Yan Gomes to a minor league contract and inviting them to camp. Ultimately, however, Murphy still seems like the favorite to be Bailey’s backup come Opening Day. For one thing, the $4.25MM in guaranteed money remaining on his contract isn’t nothing, and the Giants aren’t going to want to eat that unless they feel they have no other choice. What’s more, if he can stay healthy, his powerful righty bat could be a genuinely valuable weapon for San Francisco’s bench. Still, the team will at least do their due diligence this spring. If Murphy struggles in camp, and another catcher stands out, the Giants will have to make a difficult decision before Opening Day.